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Magellan’s Calendar

In the September of 1519, a
sailor called Ferdinand Magellan set sail to navigate around the globe. This was
at a time when earth was believed to be flat and very few thought otherwise,
even fewer were ready to prove this by planning an expedition to circumnavigate
the earth. Magellan is widely credited to have successfully completed the
expedition. Of course, the truth is Magellan died on the islands on the Philippine
archipelago and only 18 of the 241-member crew made it back to Spain to prove
that it is not possible to fall off the earth by sailing over the horizon.

The fleet of 5 ships and 241
sailors navigated the Atlantic via West Africa and the coast of Brazil. By the time
the ships resupplied on the islands of the Strait of Magellan, one of the ships;
Santiago was destroyed in a storm and
the crew of another called San Antonio
had mutinied and returned to Spain. The three remaining ships had entered the
South Pacific Ocean in the November of 1520.

The winds and waves vanished, and the sails
dropped. The silent sea as the Pacific is called offered no help. Men succumbed
to the tricks of the sea and fell overboard; the crew came into fire from
pirates in the sea and native tribesmen on land. Months passed, and there was no hospitable
land to resupply. The commanders of the ships were getting edgy and the admiral
foresaw more mutinies.

The admiral decided, the best way
to keep the crew from losing their minds over the time passed was to hide the
calendar. History records that the captains of the 3 remaining ships were given
calendars made by the admiral and they along with the admiral decided what day
it was. The Admiral maintained one calendar for himself and his first officers that
showed the real date and another calendar for the crew that showed a false date
– a date that changed slowly and kept the crew thinking days passed slower than
weeks.

The crew eventually crossed the
Pacific after 4 agonizing months of navigating through the Pacific and landed
Guam in the Philippines sea. When Magellan and his officers revealed that they
had spent 4 months navigating through the pacific, the crew was shocked beyond
belief. Some felt betrayed, some said they had an inkling, but they didn’t care
much now as they had finally made port.

The economic conditions in India
are bad. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out now. Economic indicators
like the GDP numbers, agricultural income growth, manufacturing growth,
employment rate and the aggregate demand in the economy are all declining and
have been declining for quite some time now.

Although the decline and the collective
decline is concerning, the real concern is that the central government of India
is not acknowledging it. What we hear from government and government representatives
is that FDI numbers have been the highest, the problem is because of the time
bombs left behind by the previous governments or that these are effects of the
trade war and other global factors.

Economists, one after the other
have said that the slowdown is India’s own doing. Demonetization and the hasty
implementation of a half-baked GST is being blamed for the current slowdown in
the economy. When the BJP came into power in 2014 we were at a cyclical boom
period along with a global fall in crude prices. Our government didn’t see it
fit to pass on the advantage to the consumers and saved millions, where are
those millions now?

2014 and 2015 were drought years for the agriculture of India and it had just seen a little recovery in 2016 when the government announced demonetization to kill the rural and other unorganized sectors. The government followed one blow after another by the hasty half-baked GST thereby taking care of what was left of the unorganized sectors.

The effects of these hasty and impulsive policies are having an effect now. One may say the financial crisis in Banks and NBFCs was a gift of the previous government, but sadly the numbers say otherwise. While the NPAs was at 2.5 Lakh crore in 2014 it has now come to 8.5 Lakh crores in 2019. Inaction from the current government is the reason for the snowballing of the banking crisis.

There are a lot of problems in our
economy and all of them can be fixed. We are the nation that escaped from the
meltdown in 1991, we are the nation that averted being part of the global
crisis in 2008; so we can definitely find our way around these self-inflicted
wounds. If only we have the stomach to accept that there is a crisis.

The finance minister gets defensive
and starts shutting down reporters, the home minister is busy plotting booby
traps for the opposition leaders and the prime minister is busy planning for his
next item number.

I quoted the story of Magellan and his fake calendars because I am a hopeful person inside. I secretly want to believe that no government of India can be so arrogant about its ignorance. I sincerely hope that our central government is holding a Magellan’s calendar in front of us to keep our hearts and is maintaining a genuine calendar for itself that shows the truth.